Summer camp and Mikatagoko

This past week has been filled with many events. First of all, I did a summer camp on tuesday. The summer camp was unlike an American one. It was a one day event, held at a cute museum in Obama, a small city (more like a big
town) 20 minutes south of here. We cooked Shepards pie with the children (the museum had a special cooking room with 4 free-standing cooking units!--so efficient and ingenious... it was a sink, oven, and burner combined into one "island" that converts into a table to eat on when finished). We were only aloud to speak English to the children who were so cute! Some were very shy, but all were well behaved and helped clean up without one complaint. Then we all talked to the children about themselves, and all were impressed with the pictures of my "Japanese" room at home and with the sculpture studio. And I brought clay for them to touch. None of the children were from my school. Paul did the same camp with me. Sometimes I checked to see if the children understood me by pointing to a picture of dad and saying he was my "mother" and other funny things like that. The day went rather well.

Wednesday I went up to Fukui city for the contract signing ceremony that everyone has to go to. Paul and I stayed with Katie, who lives between Fukui city and our area of Fukui. There as an after party that all JETs were invited to but we would have had to pay for a cab back to the train station and we didn't feel like going. Instead we hung out at Katie's and talked and watched some cool videos she had.

Thursday and Friday I got to go to my school! I corrected lots of summer english homework. The children are not in classes yet but some were at the school and I got to say hi.

On Saturday I went up to Tsuruga for a Japanese calligraphy lesson. The teacher is so nice! She brought us to look at some calligraphy ad then took us to lunch! Next week we will start to do some actual calligraphy. Then in the afternoon I saw my school's band perform. They were so cute, and very talented!

Today (Sunday) Paul and I biked around the five beautiful lakes of Mikata, "Mikatagoko." You can rent bikes at Mikata station. It was great fun! Unlike Fuji, which I will not do twice, haha, I'd do this again with any visitor. It is so beautiful and rigt in the neighborhood! Paul and I both forgot our cameras (duh!!) but here is a pic of them from the internet. Don't worry! It's so close by that I will definitely return frequently, so I'll have some pics of my own soon.



Well, that is it. My brain is fried by the Japanese sun. I have school tomorrow and get to meet my superviser! I think I've written enough for now. Peace y'all!

-Lisa :)